Holden targets SUV, ute sales
Holden has forecast at least nine percent growth in its combined SUV and ute sales this year, forecasting 70 percent of its overall sales volume to come from the two major categories.
The lion brand is attempting to turn around its fortunes after its sales slumped 33 percent last year in the wake of its exit from Australian car manufacturing in October 2017.
It launched a fresh initiative last week in the form of a brand marketing campaign dubbed ‘This is how we SUV’.
In announcing the latest campaign, the company said one of its key focus areas for 2019 was to grow its share in SUV and light-commercial vehicle segments.
It said these vehicles would, combined, comprise more than two thirds, or a targeted 70 percent of all sales achieved this year – 35 per cent each, with passenger cars making up the rest.
Placing a figure to this growth position is difficult when Holden’s sales and market share do not appear to have hit rock bottom yet.
January sales were down 27.1 percent compared to the same month last year, which back then was down more than 20 percent compared to January 2016.
But assuming the latest campaign and other actions hit their targets, enabling the company to at least stop the flow of negative annual returns and post a similar figure to last year’s 60,751-unit total, this would see an increase of almost 6000 sales across both its SUV range and for the Colorado ute.
Last year, Holden’s SUV lines – Trax, Trailblazer, the run-out Captiva, its Equinox replacement and the all-new Acadia – accounted for 30.9 percent of its sales.
The Colorado pick-up made up 30.1 percent, for a combined 61.0 percent of the brand’s overall sales.
This percentage mix was lineball with Toyota’s combined SUV-HILUX ute sales, but with all light-commercial vehicles factored in, the marketleading brand’s SUV-LCV mix was 70.9 percent, at 38.0 and 32.9 percent respectively.
Toyota’s ratio is the most even spread across the major categories among the leading brands in Australia but it, too, will look to strengthen its SUV position this year with key new models such as the all-new RAV4 launching soon.
New heights
Elsewhere, the ultra-competitive nature of the current market, combined with shifting consumer sentiment away from traditional passenger cars, has forced many of the high-volume car companies to redirect their sales and marketing resources, and cut back their respective model range, to reflect the trends while still attempting to push overall sales up to new heights.
The SUV-LCV sales mix among the top 10 brands in Australia last year clearly illustrates this, and the new environment in which Holden now finds itself as a middle-tier player rather than one of the top two or three.
Ford, which pulled out from local manufacturing a year earlier than Holden, had 81.6 percent of its sales from either SUVS, at a notably low 16.6 percent, or LCVS, 64.9 percent, indicating just how much the Blue Oval brand now relies on its Ranger pick-up.
The Ranger alone accounted for 61 percent of total sales last year – the same mark as GMH’S entire combined SUV-LCV percentage.
Mitsubishi, too, as a former Australian manufacturer – albeit one that closed its factory doors in 2008 – now points with satisfaction at its successful transformation to a brand well known for not only its Triton ute, but various popular SUVS, posting alltime record sales last year and predicting solid growth ahead.
The triple-diamond brand’s SUVS accounted for 61.2 percent of its sales last year, and the Triton 29.3 percent, for a 90.5 percent combined share.
Among the top 10 brands, this was only surpassed by Nissan, which has not had the same success in outright sales terms as alliance partner Mitsubishi and others, and last year had 99.4 percent of its volume taken up by its all-important SUV lines – heavily relied upon for 70.8 percent of its sales – and the Navara ute making up most of the rest with 28.5 percent.
Nissan now only has the niche 370Z and GT-R sportscars as bona fide passenger cars in its stable, but still managed to turn its sales around last year to a positive position – up 2.0 percent – after a 15.3 percent downturn in 2017.
As much as Holden might now accept that it is no longer a leader but more of a ‘challenger brand’, the company will still be looking to Mazda as a full-line role model with an incredibly popular – and ever-expanding – SUV range and a ute that adds important, but not make-or-break, incremental volume.
Last year, Mazda’s combined SUVLCV sales were at 58.7 percent, with SUVS 42.8 percent and the BT-50 ute at 11.8 percent.
This mix points to Mazda’s solid all-round performance across virtually every segment in which it competes, hence its position as the number-two brand in the marketplace.
Hyundai and Kia are also working overtime on increasing their SUV sales via new models while hanging on for a long-hoped-for pick-up.
Hyundai has the iload van contributing to its bottom line, with its SUV-LCV mix at 41.6-4.6 percent last year for a 46.2 percent combined total, while Kia, which no longer has LCVS in its range, is expecting a major turnaround as a new small SUV approaches and enables it to improve on last year’s SUV return of 31.3 percent.
Honda, which also does without LCVS, had 54.8 percent of its sales going to SUVS last year, while Volkswagen, as the other key player among the top 10 brands, has acknowledged that it, too, needs to improve its SUV standing, which was at just 25.1 percent of its total sales last year.
The Amarok ute accounted for 16.4 percent of VW’S overall volume last year, while its van range pushed its full LCV total up to 24.5 percent, so with SUVS added the combined figure came in at 49.6 percent – not enough on either front, as evidenced by a variety of product actions already introduced this year.
Just outside the top 10 last year, Subaru’s SUV range accounted for 71.5 percent of its total volume.